BY1401
Unapologetically Moderate
Saturday was not a good day to be driving a black Corvette in my neck of the woods.
It was a beautiful day, to be sure. I had to make a run out to school to use a computer to finish some homework because my version of Office at home doesn't have Access. I was about to jump in my truck, but decided that since it was so nice out I'd go ahead and take the car. As I'm finishing up my work, I overhear some guy talking to his mom on the phone about a murder that had taken place early in the morning in a bordering county. Before I left school, I checked out a news station's website to see if they had anything on it. They did. Turns out that a witness had identified the suspect to police and given them a description of the car he was driving, a 1988 black convertible Corvette, complete with the plate numbers. I wondered if anyone out there would mistake my car for this one and call 911 while I was heading home and then laughed at the notion, seeing as how my car is an '02 Z06.
Well, turns out someone made just that very mistake. And that person just happened to be driving a Sheriff's cruiser.
So here I am, driving down a multi-lane divided highway when I see a cruiser come racing up in a side lane and pull right behind me. My first thought was that this was one of my buddies messing with me. While I was out at school, I had checked my e-mail to find an invite from one of my friends to come to a big annual party. That buddy just happens to be a Major on the Sheriff's Department and commands the Operations Division, which includes motor patrol.
Now, this stretch of highway passes right in front of the Command Post and as I'm coming up on it, I see a whole lot of cruisers positioned to enter the roadway. Two cars pull out ahead of me and block the lanes while the rest of them pull behind the car tailing me. Then the lights come on.
At this point I'm still thinking it's my buddy. Granted, it's getting pretty elaborate, but I wouldn't put something like this past him. Anyway, I had pulled over onto the shoulder and was waiting for an officer to approach me. Didn't quite work out that way. I saw officers getting out of their cars, but they were staying behind their open doors. Some of them were getting their dogs out, others were busting out rifles, and the rest had their handguns drawn.
"Well...****," I thought.
Realizing this wasn't what I thought it was, I shut the car off and rolled down the windows. I heard a voice barking out "Turn off the car!" and hoped that he hadn't been saying that for very long. Per the barking voice's commands, I tossed the keys out the window, held my hands where they were clearly visible, opened the door using my right hand, exited slowly, remained facing away from said voice, took two sideways steps from the vehicle, and started walking backwards with my hands up.
As I was doing this last part, several things came to mind. I realized that police cars had not only blocked traffic in my direction of travel, but had shut down the opposite lanes as well. I thought, "wow...this is some white trash shit right here. I am that guy on COPS." Then at some point the movie My Cousin Vinny came to mind. Very good movie, by the way. "Did you just say...two YUTES?" Lol. Classic, but I digress. I also knew what the next step was going to be, and I really was not looking forward to it. I had a crazy idea that I might be able to tell the barking voice that it's difficult for be to kneel on account of several knee surgeries, but knew that wouldn't do me any good. I prepared to just suck it up and deal with it.
Sure enough, the next command was to kneel down, place my hands behind my back, and, here's what I wasn't expecting, cross my feet. Jesus H. Christ. The kneeling part was bad enough, but crossing my feet was brutal. Anyway, the barking voice was getting closer, announcing that he was going to place handcuffs on me. Well, I call him barking voice, but he wasn't so much barking anymore. His tone had subdued, but I'm still going to call him barking voice for the purposes of this story.
So, yeah. Barking voice places me in handcuffs and instructs me to stand up, adding that if I try anything stupid, they'll shoot me. I thought that was a bit over the top, personally, seeing as how I though everything had gone pretty smoothly up to this point. Of course, I'm also wondering what it is that they might consider "stupid" and it's at this point that I thought I might be able to inform barking voice of the condition of my knees and to please not consider an inadvertent stumble on my part to be a shootable offense. He said he understood (although his tone of voice suggested that he was merely placating me) and I proceeded to get up rather gingerly.
Once I was on my feet the first question I was asked was for my name, which I gave. The standard "any weapons on you or in your car" was asked, to which I responded "no," and a pat-down commenced. I told them they would find the keys to my work truck, my personal truck, my cell phone, and a flash drive in my pockets, and that my license was in my wallet in the passenger's seat. Barking voice then asked me if I knew what was going on. Answering "no," he then informed me that someone driving a car like mine had just committed murder. "Holy shit!" I thought. "Two murders in the same day...both suspects in black Corvettes...what are the odds?"
Some other deputy had located my license and run it and I heard barking voice ask if anything had come back on it. Another voice replied "no locals," but barking voice wanted what I assumed was a national search on it as well. At this point I told barking voice that they wouldn't find anything and that [Operations Division Commander's name], [Chief Deputy's name], and [Sheriff's name] all knew me and could verify who I was. I thought now was as good a time as any to start dropping as many names as I could.
Everything came back clear, but as one final check, another deputy came up with my license to see if the photo matched my ugly mug. It did, so they let me out of the cuffs and by this point their weapons were lowered and traffic was let through. Barking voice asked me if I understood what had just happened and why they did what they did. I said I understood and then he asked me if I wanted him to give me his card so that I could contact his supervisors if I had any complaints about what happened.
I told him "nah, that's okay. I'll be seeing [Operations Division Commander's first name] tonight anyway."
You'd have thought a puppy had died by the look on his face.
And as it turns out, there wasn't a second murder like I had thought. It was the same one. When I got home, I sent an e-mail to the Sheriff which read:
"FYI, you might want to see about getting some training for your deputies on the differences between the Corvette body styles by generation, particularly between 4th and 5th."
The bright side of this whole escapade was at the time the deputy stopped me, I was doing 5 over. No ticket = win.
I found out about the murder and the vehicle description after I had been out and about town for several hours. After speaking to one of the deputies who was on-scene and also at the party I went to Saturday night (who, by the way, told me this was the first time he had ever been involved with a fugitive stop and been drinking beers with the subject six hours later) said that they thought there was a good chance he'd stop by his old workplace (where he had just been fired from). To get to that business, he would have been traveling the same direction on the same highway. I live about four miles from the place. He also said that dispatch had only given a description of a black Corvette. The deputy saw a black Corvette heading down a stretch of highway they thought he'd be on. I don't blame him one bit.
The suspect killed the new boyfriend of his recent ex (girlfriend or wife, I'm not sure). Went to his house and shot him six times in the back of the head while he was asleep. He beat the crap out of her, too, but didn't kill her. She was the witness. Told the police who had done it and what he was driving.
At the party that night I told the deputy who had been there that apparently it doesn't do much good knowing and being friends with the top brass. I said it's evident that I need to get to know the road dogs. He said when it was going down, he started telling people I wasn't the guy. He said, "I'm watching this guy do everything to a tee and thinking 'this is too much like a training exercise. We've got the wrong dude. Bad guys don't cooperate like this'"
He also said I was the largest man he'd ever seen get out of a Corvette and hoped I didn't decide to hurt anyone.
Also, my car has State Police Memorial plates. The extra fee goes to a fund to help the families of fallen troopers. I was telling everyone that when I got the plates I wasn't thinking it would get me out of any tickets, but figured if I did ever get pulled over, I would hope that the cop might keep in mind that I'm not a complete asshole. I told them that afternoon had blown that theory clear out of the water. They laughed. The one deputy told me that when one of the other guys saw my plate and before they ran my ID, he asked if anyone could get that plate or did they just do a fugitive stop on a State Trooper. I laughed.
Throughout the whole ordeal, barking voice maintained a high level of professionalism and in my e-mail to the Sheriff I even commended his guys on their performance. I know that they had to be amped up and ready to get it on if need be, but everyone stayed calm and controlled. There was no swearing, no yelling (other than barking voice being loud out of necessity), no rough treatment while I was detained, and, most importantly, no tasering (although the Sheriff did joke with me on that last point).
All in all, no harm...no foul. And I've got a kickass story to tell.
*****
ROFL Now that would be a small world.
When I showed up to the party that night I walked up to my buddy who hadn't heard about the stop. He laughed and said "Well goddamn! Look at you, man! Did you just come out of the woods? You look like a guy that just finished killing his whole family!"
*****
Damn. There's a Missouri connection to this story after all.
Link.
It was a beautiful day, to be sure. I had to make a run out to school to use a computer to finish some homework because my version of Office at home doesn't have Access. I was about to jump in my truck, but decided that since it was so nice out I'd go ahead and take the car. As I'm finishing up my work, I overhear some guy talking to his mom on the phone about a murder that had taken place early in the morning in a bordering county. Before I left school, I checked out a news station's website to see if they had anything on it. They did. Turns out that a witness had identified the suspect to police and given them a description of the car he was driving, a 1988 black convertible Corvette, complete with the plate numbers. I wondered if anyone out there would mistake my car for this one and call 911 while I was heading home and then laughed at the notion, seeing as how my car is an '02 Z06.
Well, turns out someone made just that very mistake. And that person just happened to be driving a Sheriff's cruiser.
So here I am, driving down a multi-lane divided highway when I see a cruiser come racing up in a side lane and pull right behind me. My first thought was that this was one of my buddies messing with me. While I was out at school, I had checked my e-mail to find an invite from one of my friends to come to a big annual party. That buddy just happens to be a Major on the Sheriff's Department and commands the Operations Division, which includes motor patrol.
Now, this stretch of highway passes right in front of the Command Post and as I'm coming up on it, I see a whole lot of cruisers positioned to enter the roadway. Two cars pull out ahead of me and block the lanes while the rest of them pull behind the car tailing me. Then the lights come on.
At this point I'm still thinking it's my buddy. Granted, it's getting pretty elaborate, but I wouldn't put something like this past him. Anyway, I had pulled over onto the shoulder and was waiting for an officer to approach me. Didn't quite work out that way. I saw officers getting out of their cars, but they were staying behind their open doors. Some of them were getting their dogs out, others were busting out rifles, and the rest had their handguns drawn.
"Well...****," I thought.
Realizing this wasn't what I thought it was, I shut the car off and rolled down the windows. I heard a voice barking out "Turn off the car!" and hoped that he hadn't been saying that for very long. Per the barking voice's commands, I tossed the keys out the window, held my hands where they were clearly visible, opened the door using my right hand, exited slowly, remained facing away from said voice, took two sideways steps from the vehicle, and started walking backwards with my hands up.
As I was doing this last part, several things came to mind. I realized that police cars had not only blocked traffic in my direction of travel, but had shut down the opposite lanes as well. I thought, "wow...this is some white trash shit right here. I am that guy on COPS." Then at some point the movie My Cousin Vinny came to mind. Very good movie, by the way. "Did you just say...two YUTES?" Lol. Classic, but I digress. I also knew what the next step was going to be, and I really was not looking forward to it. I had a crazy idea that I might be able to tell the barking voice that it's difficult for be to kneel on account of several knee surgeries, but knew that wouldn't do me any good. I prepared to just suck it up and deal with it.
Sure enough, the next command was to kneel down, place my hands behind my back, and, here's what I wasn't expecting, cross my feet. Jesus H. Christ. The kneeling part was bad enough, but crossing my feet was brutal. Anyway, the barking voice was getting closer, announcing that he was going to place handcuffs on me. Well, I call him barking voice, but he wasn't so much barking anymore. His tone had subdued, but I'm still going to call him barking voice for the purposes of this story.
So, yeah. Barking voice places me in handcuffs and instructs me to stand up, adding that if I try anything stupid, they'll shoot me. I thought that was a bit over the top, personally, seeing as how I though everything had gone pretty smoothly up to this point. Of course, I'm also wondering what it is that they might consider "stupid" and it's at this point that I thought I might be able to inform barking voice of the condition of my knees and to please not consider an inadvertent stumble on my part to be a shootable offense. He said he understood (although his tone of voice suggested that he was merely placating me) and I proceeded to get up rather gingerly.
Once I was on my feet the first question I was asked was for my name, which I gave. The standard "any weapons on you or in your car" was asked, to which I responded "no," and a pat-down commenced. I told them they would find the keys to my work truck, my personal truck, my cell phone, and a flash drive in my pockets, and that my license was in my wallet in the passenger's seat. Barking voice then asked me if I knew what was going on. Answering "no," he then informed me that someone driving a car like mine had just committed murder. "Holy shit!" I thought. "Two murders in the same day...both suspects in black Corvettes...what are the odds?"
Some other deputy had located my license and run it and I heard barking voice ask if anything had come back on it. Another voice replied "no locals," but barking voice wanted what I assumed was a national search on it as well. At this point I told barking voice that they wouldn't find anything and that [Operations Division Commander's name], [Chief Deputy's name], and [Sheriff's name] all knew me and could verify who I was. I thought now was as good a time as any to start dropping as many names as I could.
Everything came back clear, but as one final check, another deputy came up with my license to see if the photo matched my ugly mug. It did, so they let me out of the cuffs and by this point their weapons were lowered and traffic was let through. Barking voice asked me if I understood what had just happened and why they did what they did. I said I understood and then he asked me if I wanted him to give me his card so that I could contact his supervisors if I had any complaints about what happened.
I told him "nah, that's okay. I'll be seeing [Operations Division Commander's first name] tonight anyway."
You'd have thought a puppy had died by the look on his face.
And as it turns out, there wasn't a second murder like I had thought. It was the same one. When I got home, I sent an e-mail to the Sheriff which read:
"FYI, you might want to see about getting some training for your deputies on the differences between the Corvette body styles by generation, particularly between 4th and 5th."
The bright side of this whole escapade was at the time the deputy stopped me, I was doing 5 over. No ticket = win.
I found out about the murder and the vehicle description after I had been out and about town for several hours. After speaking to one of the deputies who was on-scene and also at the party I went to Saturday night (who, by the way, told me this was the first time he had ever been involved with a fugitive stop and been drinking beers with the subject six hours later) said that they thought there was a good chance he'd stop by his old workplace (where he had just been fired from). To get to that business, he would have been traveling the same direction on the same highway. I live about four miles from the place. He also said that dispatch had only given a description of a black Corvette. The deputy saw a black Corvette heading down a stretch of highway they thought he'd be on. I don't blame him one bit.
The suspect killed the new boyfriend of his recent ex (girlfriend or wife, I'm not sure). Went to his house and shot him six times in the back of the head while he was asleep. He beat the crap out of her, too, but didn't kill her. She was the witness. Told the police who had done it and what he was driving.
At the party that night I told the deputy who had been there that apparently it doesn't do much good knowing and being friends with the top brass. I said it's evident that I need to get to know the road dogs. He said when it was going down, he started telling people I wasn't the guy. He said, "I'm watching this guy do everything to a tee and thinking 'this is too much like a training exercise. We've got the wrong dude. Bad guys don't cooperate like this'"
He also said I was the largest man he'd ever seen get out of a Corvette and hoped I didn't decide to hurt anyone.
Also, my car has State Police Memorial plates. The extra fee goes to a fund to help the families of fallen troopers. I was telling everyone that when I got the plates I wasn't thinking it would get me out of any tickets, but figured if I did ever get pulled over, I would hope that the cop might keep in mind that I'm not a complete asshole. I told them that afternoon had blown that theory clear out of the water. They laughed. The one deputy told me that when one of the other guys saw my plate and before they ran my ID, he asked if anyone could get that plate or did they just do a fugitive stop on a State Trooper. I laughed.
Throughout the whole ordeal, barking voice maintained a high level of professionalism and in my e-mail to the Sheriff I even commended his guys on their performance. I know that they had to be amped up and ready to get it on if need be, but everyone stayed calm and controlled. There was no swearing, no yelling (other than barking voice being loud out of necessity), no rough treatment while I was detained, and, most importantly, no tasering (although the Sheriff did joke with me on that last point).
All in all, no harm...no foul. And I've got a kickass story to tell.
*****
ROFL Now that would be a small world.
When I showed up to the party that night I walked up to my buddy who hadn't heard about the stop. He laughed and said "Well goddamn! Look at you, man! Did you just come out of the woods? You look like a guy that just finished killing his whole family!"
*****
Damn. There's a Missouri connection to this story after all.
Link.
Just be sure to comb it out once in a while.
yada yada...treated me like a damn commoner, didn't they even know who I am?...yada yada..gonna talk to my buddy the governor tonite at a state dinner and get that clown fired.
